Zarah Fairn Dos Santos talks not being picked for TUF 28, slams UFC for making featherweight season a “show of bantamweights”

The Ultimate Fighter 28’s female cast was announced earlier this week and several women from the featherweight division are not happy with the final selections.

TUF 28 will feature female featherweights and male heavyweights, the female cast was revealed earlier this week. Cindy Dandois, who owns wins over Megan Anderson, Jorina Baars and King Reina, already hit out at the UFC’s picks revealing she feels ‘disrespected’ by the fact that the UFC have selected natural bantamweights, as well as women with few fights, and in one case zero professional fights. Another fighter who is unhappy with the final selections is Zarah Fairn Dos Santos.

Dos Santos (6-2) has fought at featherweight or above for the majority of her MMA career and is currently riding high having won five of her last six, including four sensational first-round knockouts. The 31-year-old striking specialist has never been finished in her MMA career and believes TUF 28 is more of a bantamweight showcase than the supposed featherweight one.

“I did not make it onto TUF28, nor did the other featherweights. It is time for me because this TUF will be a show of bantamweights not featherweights. My weight is at present 145 now I am ready? I don’t know what the UFC is planning with the division, I don’t really know myself what is going on.” Dos Santos wrote on her Instagram page.

10 comments

Well, now she and her management team can start putting fliers out to the Professional Fighters League to find out about their PFL Women’s Featherweight Tournament in 2019 or whatever class Kayla Harrison will be able to cut down to.

PFL should create an open division. It makes no sense to create a 4th featherweight division when there is barely enough high level talent to populate just one. If you look at WMMARankings top 10 FW’s from the UFC, Invicta and Bellator, you would be hard pressed to make one interesting division, much less spread them among 4 organizations.

the UFC has made a half ass effort with this division and this ridiculous TUF roster. one of the women who was selected apparently didn’t even try out but the fact that virtually no 45ers made the show when several did come to tryouts is just proof that the division is poor anyway.

I mean, this Zarah girl has only fought one featherweight that isn’t a complete bum. most of her opponents have been bantamweights and her last fight was against a strawweight. just shows how shallow 145 is. no point even having it.

Like any job and any sport, people will come once they find out that they can make a decent living by getting said job and by participating in said sport. There needs to be incentive, and in a free enterprise system, the incentive is cash money. Once these women find out that they will be paid some good money, more and more will come. It is the way of life. Just look at how MMA has grown as the money has grown.

You make it sound like featherweight is a debuting division but it has been around for over 10 years and longer than most of the lighter divisions, at least in the West. The first “money fight” in WMMA (Cyborg vs. Carano) was at featherweight nearly 9 years ago. It has had ample time to grow but hasn’t. For the most part, the dominant fighters back in the early days are still the dominant fighters.

The Women’s Featherweight division has been around for 10 years not paying crap. So JR YUEN, you are just typing nonsense. Cyborg vs Carano was the Women’s Super Fight built off of Elite XC’s hard work and StrikeForce got it and did absolutely nothing to push the Women’s Featherweight division higher after that fight and the pay was atrocious. Once the UFC got on board with the Women’s Bantamweight division, more women came to the UFC Bantamweight division because of the pay. And when the UFC started their Strawweight division, more women came aboard to that division because of pay. And the UFC has gotten on board with the Women’s Featherweight division and OMG, 28 Women came out because they know the pay would be good. JR YUEN you are just being a total nonsensical nay sayer. Road FC got into heavier weight classes for women and to no one’s surprise, they have been getting the heavier women to come aboard because they know they will be getting paid decent money. JR YUEN you are the same person who was doing your same whining about the Women’s Bantamweight division when the UFC started it. Debating with someone like you is pointless because all you can see is the negatives.

For the record, I was quite supportive of the WBW division when it was created in the UFC, and argued extensively with those claiming they were just a bunch of soccer moms. While I would not call the WFW division a bunch of soccer moms, I do maintain that their skill level, with a few notable exceptions, is far below those at WBW. The UFC established their FW division 2 years ago and they have a whopping 2 fighters signed up. Most of the fighters they have selected for this next TUF are either BW’s or fighters that appear they could make 135. I can understand the frustration of the FW’s with established records that they were chosen but I think it’s an indication of the direction the UFC is headed in. You appear to feel that it bodes well for the FW division. I don’t. Can we agree to disagree without the need of insults?

Finally, I would prefer to see the UFC put their energy and dollars into developing an AW division, as their is ample available high level talent to develop it. I just don’t know if the UFC is willing to pay them enough to induce them to come over.

Trolling every comment I make. You have nothing else putting to do than to reply to every post I make. You are the type of troll that makes people not want to participate on sites. A dam stalker troll.